


sciamachy

by cerealmilk



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Canon Compliant, Cutting, Gen, Inner Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 04:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6359926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerealmilk/pseuds/cerealmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's funny is that for all the fighting Sabine does, her most common enemy is herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sciamachy

**Author's Note:**

> sciamachy [noun]
> 
> 1\. a fight against an imaginary opponent

The first unspoken rule was that Sabine never took her armor off.

Nobody questioned it, nobody knew why. It was just one of the small things that had become a normal occurrence in the lives of the Ghost crew.

Nobody had ever seen her out of uniform, and the only way you would would be if you _just so happened_ to stumble across her relaxing.

 _But that was impossible,_ everyone presumed unconsciously, somewhere in the depths of their conscience. Sabine was too cautious, and nobody cared to try to catch a purposeful, invasive glimpse. Such effort would be useless under the influence of the unspoken rule.

The unspoken rule was that the young Mandelorian was always to have armor on, and if she didn't, then it was an intruder trying to be clever.

The unspoken rule had held fast for all the time the members of the Ghost crew had known Sabine, hence why it had become unspoken.

This rule was only the first of several revolving around the young Mandelorian.

 

  

* * *

 

 

( _Sabine had never asked to join a ragtag group of rebels, but fate had never been on her side._ )

 

 

* * *

 

 

The second unspoken rule was that Sabine never kept secrets.

She always spoke, always spoke her mind, always spoke a little too pervasively or a little too laconically. Too much or too few, no in between.

She was masterful in the art of a silver-bladed tongue, trained in the ways of ruthless honesty and sharp wit.

But she had secrets; everyone had secrets.

Her past? She told no one, because everyone thought they knew.

Her opinions on the bigger things, the things no one cared enough to ask about? She told no one because she thought, no, _knew_ it wasn't worth their time or attention.

Her life beyond the doors of her paint-laden room? That, she buried deep within herself. The deepest, darkest, place she could find.

Too many times she found herself tempted to spill, but she had trained herself not to. _Practice makes perfect,_ she thought sardonically, two parts bitter, ten parts sad.

And it hurt, the lump in her throat, the way her eyes stung and her chest ached when she let loose another perfect lie.

She tried not to notice the way it tore herself apart.

 

  

* * *

 

    

( _She told Hera she'd try to trust her, and she did, but it was hard. Everyone she'd trusted in the past had turned against her. Her instincts screamed that Hera would do the same._ )

( _She screamed back that it was wrong. It had to be._ )

( _Trust is really a scary thing._ )

( _Hence, she did not give it out so freely, not nearly as freely as Hera thought._ )

( _And it hurt to pretend she understood, but Sabine was used to hurting at this point._ )

 

  

* * *

 

 

The third unspoken rule was that Sabine never cried.

Physically, of course she did, of course she _could,_ but because nobody had ever seen her do so, they instantly assumed that she was above crying.

They assumed that she couldn't, that it was _impossible._

She tried to believe them, convinced herself that she did, convinced herself that when she curled herself into a ball at night and hid her face in her knees, that the burn that scorched across her eyes was only because of the dryness of keeping them open for too long.

She tried to convince herself that the way she hunched over the toilet some nights after particularly stressful operations, one hand clutched tight over her mouth and the other ramming into her stomach to prevent herself from throwing up, that the sharp tang in her mouth was the bile, and not the tears that she _couldn't_ shed.

It hurt, of course it did, but she, of course, didn't show it. She didn't show a lot of things.

Her emotions, like her secrets, were tucked away, hidden like cards in a game of poker, and she didn't want anyone to see her hand.

By the end of the day, the confident smirks and sharp quips she let loose so often began to feel sore and raw on her lips. It was not uncommon for her to retreat to her room early, under the excuse that she had something to paint.

They swallowed her lies like liquid oxygen.

 

  

* * *

 

  

( _She'd taken the risk and shot at Darth Vader, even though something inside her knew that it was futile._ )

( _It hurt, of course it did. Because they were bruises and bruises always hurt. Her pride had numbed the pain, if only a small piece of it._ )

( _Or perhaps it was her pride that hurt, and her body that was numb._ )

  

 

* * *

 

 

The fourth unspoken rule was that Sabine never got hurt.

In a way, they were right. It was damn-near impossible to injure her to the point of assistance or immovability in battle. Bruises, concussions-- those things happened all the time to the members of the Ghost crew, so they didn't count as a particular injury.

Bleeding? Everyone bled, black or blue or crimson.

 

 

( _She swore she bled all three._ )

 

But serious, potentially threatening wounds? It was like trying to shoot smoke. Sabine was too slick, too experienced to let that ever happen. Never had she had to go to the medical bay for her own injuries; it was always for the injuries of others.

Nobody expected her to get hurt, and after a while of knowing her, everyone stopped worrying and started trusting her more and more. They had confidence in her confidence, and that's exactly what she wanted.

 

 

( _It was better this way._ )

 

Nobody had to know about the tidy, tally-mark scars lined up neatly on the undersides of her forearms.

They were the only scars she had, the only scars she managed to gain. If no one could land a hit on her, then she would land a hit on herself. A self-inflicted ritual that made her feel a little bit better about taking lives so carelessly, even if it was for a nobler cause.

Of course, that wasn't the only reason she drew knives across her tanned, callused skin. There was the lingering depression, the pathological lying, the tears she refused to let fall, the guilt without blame. The betrayal, the confusion, the need for affection but the inability to ask for it.

Her armor hid too much; she knew it was careless to rely on it as profoundly as she did, but at this point, she was too tired to care.

 

 

* * *

  

 

( _And so, the blood she spilled, she bottled up, too._ )

  

 

* * *

 

  

The fifth unspoken rule was that Sabine never asked for help.

And she never did.

She never expected to.

But fate was never really on her side, anyways.

 

  

* * *

 

    

( _Hera's almost-death had struck all of the right chords._ )

( _The guilt of failure, the pressure that Hera might actually die._ )

( _She tried to convince herself that it wasn't her fault, but she knew._ )

( _Even when it was over, she knew._ )

( _Even when Kanan and Hera told her it wasn't, she knew._ )

( _She gave herself two cuts that night, and they hurt, but they were supposed to. It was the least she deserved._ )

( _She bled mahogany._ )

( _Hera must have suspected something; something in the hollowness of Sabine's gaze, something in the bags under her eyes, something in the fatigue of her posture, something in the strain of her smile._ )

( _Sabine pretended she didn't notice._ )

( _But she did-- of course she did._ )

  

 

* * *

 

  

The sixth unspoken rule was that out of all of them, Sabine was obviously the most comfortable with killing.

Her guns were instruments of destruction, and she could play a mean symphony.

Her 'miracles' were her drug. They sparked a little color into the bleak and evanescent world she had created for herself.

But it was a temporary effect.

The more she blew stuff up, the better she felt, but for shorter and shorter periods at a time.

And so, destruction became her middle name.

Killing was a slow poison, but so was cutting.

Sabine knew nothing that didn't kill her these days.

 

 

* * *

 

 

( _She was fighting a losing battle against imaginary enemies._ )

( _Long, snaking tendrils, formed by the phobias that plagued her mind so, held her in place._ )

( _Shadows, dark and looming, sparking from her past, held her at the throat._ )

( _But she knew, in reality, that she was tearing herself apart._ )

( _All she could do was smile through the pain, lie a little more, die a little more, live a little longer._ )

( _And it hurt, of course it did._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Can I take one of the most normal characters from the show and mess them up? 
> 
> Absolutely.


End file.
